komyo

Updated: June 9, 2025

It is necessary, therefore, to direct our eyes for a moment to the course of affairs on the side of the Ashikaga. Ashikaga Takauji's original idea was to follow the system of Yoritomo in everything. Kamakura was to be his capital and he assumed the title of shogun. This was in 1335. Three years later he received the shogunate in due form from the Northern sovereign, Komyo.

F. (Frank) Brinkley - A History of the Japanese People : From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era

Every one of these sovereigns lent earnest aid to the propagation of Buddhism, and the tendency of the age culminated in the fanaticism of Shomu, re-enforced as it was by the devotion of his consort, Komyo. Tradition has woven into a beautiful legend the nation's impression of this lady's piety. In an access of humility she vowed to wash the bodies of a thousand beggars.

F. (Frank) Brinkley - A History of the Japanese People : From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era

It is said to have been mainly at the instance of the Empress Komyo that the great image of Todai-ji was constructed and the provincial temples were established. But undoubtedly the original impulse came from a priest, Gyogi. He was one of those men who seem to have been specially designed by fate for the work they undertake.

F. (Frank) Brinkley - A History of the Japanese People : From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era

It has to be remembered that Nestorians had carried Christianity to the Tang Court long before the days of Komyo. In spite, however, of all this zeal for Buddhism, the nation did not entirely abandon its traditional faith. The original cult had been ancestor worship. Each great family had its uji no Kami, to whom it made offerings and presented supplications.

F. (Frank) Brinkley - A History of the Japanese People : From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era